Page 77 of Violent Little Thing

“Maybe, maybe not. At the time I was happy to let them have it. They sacrificed a lot when I was playing soccer. Missed a lot of weekends, even more weeknights with practices. Took me all over the country. They were good parents once.”

“The money got to their heads? Come on.” Charleigh caught my hand. “Let’s go get a drink.”

“I don’t drink,” I pointed out.

She leveled a look at me. “I don’t either. I was going to get a Shirley Temple. You can have one of your Coke Zeros and pretend that it doesn’t taste weird.” She tugged harder. “We can do it at the bar and act like we’re drinking and belong.”

“Fine,” I grumbled.

She grinned. “Let me go grab my purse.”

Little did I know, she’d called in reinforcements.

When we got to Hopps, there were a lot of Dixie Wardens there, making winding down with a Coke Zero and a salad pretty damn great.

Twenty-Two

Why do people wait until New Years to cut people off? Fuck you right now on June 3rd.

—Charleigh to Courtland

Charleigh

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man drink so many zero-sugar drinks before in my life.”

I looked at the eight glasses sitting next to Court and smiled at my friend.

Birdee was two drinks deep as well, though hers weren’t zero sugar or alcohol free. Hers were straight-up beer, and she was laughing so hard her eyes were watering. She was obviously a lightweight.

Or she’d been drinking before she noticed the number of empty glasses that were next to Court’s right elbow.

At one point, I saw him leaning over the bar and filling it straight from the soda gun behind the counter once Hopps had left. To say the man put them away would be an understatement.

“He’s trying to keep up with the rest of them.” I snickered.

There were a lot of empty glasses on the tables between the Dixie Wardens.

I’d sent out a text to Birdee with an SOS for Court’s mental health, and seven of them had shown up.

“We should probably start collecting the glasses since it seems that Hopps has stopped working.”

Birdee got up to refill her pint, but grabbed three of her glasses to take behind the bar as she did.

I caught my two glasses, Birdee’s last remaining one, and two of Shaw’s.

Birdee took a seat behind the bar on Hopps’s chair, and I got to work cleaning the glasses.

When my sink was empty, Birdee went to grab more.

She got sidetracked by her husband halfway and took a seat on his lap.

I smiled as I went to the table and gathered more glasses.

Hopps smiled at me gratefully, but continued his conversation with his club family.

I repeated this process four other times until all the glasses were draining or dry.

Only when I was done did I return to the table.